Sunday, August 10, 2008

Here is a clear sign we are in a recession -- there is a limited edition Earth Live CD (from the band's 2006 tour with Sunn O))) that has been available for sale on SouthernLord.com for more than a month. A year ago, the disc would have sold out within days and been on eBay with a 200-300% markup. This hits close to home as I would like to own a copy of the disc but just don't have the extra cash to buy it now.

I know that Earth's current disc has been out since February but a few major-league crises resulted in a few discs slipping to the bottom of the review pile. Everything is moving forward again but...it is insanely hard to get caught up once you fall behind.

Earth has essentially been touring on this disc since 2007 so the material is very familiar to me. I know this is somewhat of a contradictory statement but Earth played 5 of the 7 tracks from this disc at their show at the Bowery Ballroom last summer (see previous post for set list and pictures).

I'm one of the people who bought Earth's first disc because of Kurt Cobain's involvement so I have been watching Earth's evolution with great pleasure. The feedback and dissonance of the early releases is all but gone by this time and this release is very accessible. By this, I don't mean that this disc will likely get commercial airplay but The Bee... fits well alongside releases from bands like Pelican and Isis.

With this release, Earth has completely shaken the 'doom' label and it may be pushing it to call this 'drone'. The seven tracks (almost an hour) on this disc seem to form one complete story. The all-instrumental CD has typical languid Earth tempos and, while the music is somber, it is almost cheery. Each song has the space in which to breath and each note is heard in its crystalline beauty. The disc almost has an ambient quality but both the individual songs and the disc as a whole are a lot more structured than most ambient bands. The only potential "weakness" of this disc is that, as a cohesive body of instrumental work, this isn't the sort of release that you are going to drop on to listen to one or two tracks.

In looking at Earth's MySpace page (link below), things seem fairly quiet for the band. If you are in the Pacific Northwest, Earth have some Seattle and Portland shows scheduled for September.